


you leave me tangled in a knot

by adamantine



Category: Free!
Genre: F/F, takes place sometime after S1, they're all girls now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 03:23:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5318591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adamantine/pseuds/adamantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rin helps Haruka study for an English exam, but the tension between them becomes unbearable. Haruka starts to rethink what exactly her feelings for Rin are.</p>
<p>(For Day 3: Magnetism & Day 6: Transformation of RinHaru week)</p>
            </blockquote>





	you leave me tangled in a knot

“Are you sure you don’t need any help with the dishes?” Rin asked as Haruka collected their plates.

“It’s fine. It won’t take me that long. You can watch TV or play a video game until I’m done.”

“Okay.” Rin looked like she wanted to say something more but to Haruka’s relief she went to fumble with the remote instead, finally giving her a moment to collect her thoughts without Rin hovering over her.

She needed a chance to process what had happened that day, a moment alone without her mind focused on studying English or, more likely as it were, studying Rin. Rin had even insisted on helping her make dinner and twice she’d almost ruined their meal because she couldn’t stop being aware of her.

She let out the breath she’d been holding. Somehow their study session had morphed into a sleepover. Makoto had let slip Haruka failed an English exam and was being forced to retake it. That led Nagisa to having the bright idea to ask “Rin-chan” to tutor Haruka since she “lived in Australia for years!” Haruka had tried to stop her, but Nagisa was a force of nature when she set her mind on something.

So now here they were, a Saturday night, Haruka and her ex-teammate and current swimming rival, awkwardly trying to navigate around their newly repaired friendship. Only a few months earlier Rin had been straddling her, tears running down her face, as she told Haruka she wanted to swim with her, completely open and honest with her feelings.

But today? Today she’d been anxious and distracted. It was pretty clear to Haruka that her mind was elsewhere. Haruka didn’t like it. She rarely got to see Rin outside of tournaments and joint practices. She wanted Rin to pay attention to her during the small amount of time they had together.

When Rin had started to get ready to leave and head back to Samezuka, Haruka had felt a rush of nausea. She panicked and grabbed Rin’s arm and asked her to stay the night.

“I don’t think I’m ready for the test yet. I still need your help. Please?” She’d stared at the floor between them, afraid that if Rin had looked into her eyes she’d see right through her and realize how desperate and pathetic she was.

“Okay. I just have to call the dorms and tell them I’m not coming back for the night.”

“Thank you.” She held on to Rin’s arm for a few seconds longer before letting go and running off to start dinner.

Haruka slid off the elastic on her wrist and tied up her hair before turning on the faucet. She’d practically begged Rin to stay but now she was regretting it deeply. If their study session had been painful dinner had been outright hell. At least when they were studying Haruka could ask questions about the material. During dinner they’d both struggled to keep the conversation going and when they’d bumped hands reaching for rice Rin had pulled her hand away like she’d been burned.

Things weren’t going like Haruka had planned at all. She couldn’t figure out how to bring back the Rin that had bared her heart and soul to her. Weren’t they friends? Didn’t Rin know she could tell her anything?

_Maybe you aren’t really friends after all_ , said a small voice in the back of her head. No. That wasn’t true. She didn’t grow up with her like with Makoto and she didn’t to school with her like Nagisa, Rei, and Gou, but that didn’t mean their bond was any weaker. They didn’t need to spend childhood together or see each other every day to be friends. As long as they kept swimming they were connected and Haruka was never going to stop swimming. She didn’t think Rin would either, not after all they’d been through. Wasn’t that friendship? She scrubbed at a plate in irritation. Why wouldn’t Rin tell her what was going on?

_Maybe you don’t want to know_. She felt sick again. That wasn’t true, she wanted to know. She wanted Rin to feel like she was someone she could talk to, someone she could trust. Wasn’t that one of the reasons their friendship had imploded, Rin being afraid to share her problems with Haruka? Not telling her how much she’d been struggling in Australia, taking on everything by herself? But what if it wasn’t something like that, what if she was distant and distracted for some other reason. Haruka wanted to stop thinking, to turn off her brain for a moment but she couldn’t. Deep down she sensed the reason for Rin’s behavior and she didn’t like what it meant.

When Rin had showed up for their study session at noon they were a little nervous around each other, sure, but it wasn’t until Haruka had asked if there was anyone Rin liked that things took a real nosedive.

“Why are you asking?” Rin had froze the moment Haruka asked the question, tension radiating off her.

“A senpai confessed to me yesterday.”

“Oh. What did you say to them?”

“I told him I wasn’t interested in dating. I have too much on my plate with school and swimming already.”

“What a cruel rejection.”

Haruka frowned. “I was being honest.”

“So you would have gone out with him if you had more free time?” Haruka didn’t like Rin’s tone. She felt like she was being judged.

“No.” She didn’t really know him. She’d been confused as to why he was interested in her in the first place when they’d never even had a conversation before.

“Like I said, cruel.” Rin turned away from her and went back to highlighting problem areas in Haruka’s English work.

“I’m not cruel.” Haruka was irritated. Who was Rin to judge her rejection speech? Better to let him down easy than to needlessly crush his heart. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Rin tensed up again. “What question?”

“If there’s someone you like.”

“Why does it matter?”

“Just answer the question.” In truth, Haruka didn’t know why it mattered; she’d only asked the question on a whim. But the more Rin evaded answering, the more she wanted to pry the answer out of her.

“Fine. I do like someone. Happy?”

Haruka was stunned. The room shifted around her, making her dizzy. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. Somehow, even with all Rin’s reluctance to speak, this wasn’t the answer she’d been expecting.

“What about you? Do you like someone?” The harshness around Rin vanished and was replaced by something hopeful.

Haruka shook her head.

Rin’s eyes flashed for moment and then she began to sink into herself, deflating right before Haruka’s eyes. Haruka had said the wrong thing.

“You really are cruel.” She was certain it would have hurt less if Rin had physically stabbed her. Shame filled her but she didn’t understand why. Had Rin expected her to lie? It wasn’t her fault no boy had ever caught her attention. The only thing that made her heart race was swimming. Well, swimming and Rin, but that was different. Rin was just someone everyone paid attention to.

When she finished washing the dishes she let the water run for a little while longer, giving herself a few moments to think about how she could fix things between them. She couldn’t stand the tension any longer. Ignoring what had happened hadn’t helped at all.

Rin was sitting in front of the television with her hands around her knees, watching a weather forecast. She kept her eyes on the screen even as Haruka approached her, but whether she was riveted by the 7-day forecast or lost in her own thoughts was impossible to tell.

“Rin.” She sat down beside her, keenly aware of how Rin tensed up and drew together, hugging her knees even closer to her chest.

“Yeah?”

Haruka reached for the remote, her arm brushing against Rin in the process, and turned off the TV. That small moment of contact made her almost forget why she’d approached Rin in the first place.

She fumbled for the right words to say. “Rin, you don’t need to hold back around me.”

“What do you mean?” she said, wary.

“You’ve been distant all day. Whatever it is that’s on your mind, you can tell me.” A part of Haruka was afraid of what it could be but she shoved her fear down. It was selfish of her to shy away from what was troubling Rin just because it might be painful for her to hear. Rin was her friend and that meant being there for her through thick and thin. Why potentially hearing about Rin’s crush qualified as “thick and thin” like it was some sort of test of adversity for Haruka to get through, she didn’t have the answer for.

Rin brushed her off. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Rin, it’s okay. If this is about… who you like, we can talk about it.” Haruka hoped she didn’t come off as anxious as she was on the inside.

Rin laughed, startling Haruka. “Are you serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Rin’s reaction confused her.

“Nope. We are not having this conversation,” she said more to herself than to Haruka.

“Rin…”

“I’m sorry for earlier, for calling you cruel. You’re not cruel. If you were I wouldn’t… argh.” She hid her face against her knees for a moment before continuing. “I shouldn’t have lashed out at you. I’m sorry.”

“I’m the one who should be apologizing. I pushed you too far.”

“Why did you then?” Her tone wasn’t accusatory, but curious.

“I don’t know.” She tried to make sense of why she kept pushing Rin for the answer. She couldn’t imagine ever losing her cool like that with someone else. If Makoto had a crush she’d be curious, sure, but she couldn’t imagine pushing her into admitting it. She wasn’t someone that needlessly pried into people’s personal affairs. But with Rin things were different.

“What does it feel like?” she blurted out. There she went again, acting out of character whenever Rin was around.

“It feels like shit,” Rin said bluntly. “Even the stupidest pause between words can make my insides twist up. I don’t want them to have this power over me, but they do and I hate it.” It was again an answer Haruka hadn’t expected. “And yet I still crave their attention because sometimes it’s not shit, sometimes it feels like I’m flying.” She smiled at Haruka. “Or I guess in a metaphor you could understand, it’s like I can swim a million laps without getting tired if they so much as smile at me.”

“Oh.” Something was clicking in Haruka’s mind. Everything Rin said was familiar. She’d given her not the final piece of the puzzle, but the image of what it would look like when complete. She recognized now why her feelings went haywire around Rin. She liked Rin. _Oh._ A different kind of wooziness came over her. She liked Rin but Rin was already in love with someone else.

The magnitude of her pain dwarfed everything she’d felt before understanding her feelings. Ignorance had blunted the impact of Rin’s admission. It wasn’t just in her mind, it was a real, physical pain. Her heart clenched and she struggled to breathe.

“What is it?” Rin asked, concerned.

“It’s nothing. Things just make more sense now.”

The tension that Rin had carried all day, her anxiety around Haruka — none of that compared to the terror that now struck her. It brought to mind the day of the relay when Haruka had found her in front of the tree, angry and broken. But the anger was missing and for some reason this worried Haruka more than if it had been there.

“You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?” Her voice trembled as she spoke.

“Figured what out?” Had Rin picked up on her epiphany? But why would that make her tremble like the world was collapsing? Was liking Rin such an unforgivable sin?

“Are you making fun of me?” There were tears in her eyes. Haruka was beside herself seeing Rin like this. Rin wasn’t allowed to cry — not when she was sad at least — didn’t she understand what it did to Haruka to see her in pain?

“I’m not. I wouldn’t—“

“If this is too weird for you, I’ll go. I can spend the night at my mom’s house.”

“What? Why is it weird—“ Nothing made sense.

“We can just pretend this never happened if that’s what you want. It’s not like I expected my feelings to be returned. It will hurt for a while but I’ll get over it. I’d still like to be your friend but I get if that’s impossible for you.”

As Rin rambled on, Haruka stared at her, her mind racing as Rin’s words began to sink in. _Did Rin like her?_ It sounded like it, but maybe she was just hearing what she wanted to hear. It was impossible. It couldn’t be true.

“Rin, do you like me?” She needed to know.

“What?” Rin’s eyes flashed. “Oh shit.” She let out a painful, strangled laugh. “You weren’t kidding. You really didn’t figure it out. Fucking fantastic.”

She started to cry in earnest, huge choked sobs. They tugged at Haruka’s heart but the panic from earlier was gone. She dimly registered that she was smiling.

“Rin.” She pulled Rin’s hands away from her face.

“Leave me alone,” she said weakly.

“Why would I do that?” She dabbed at Rin’s eyes with her sleeve, her heart light. Rin watched her, frozen, as she wiped away her tears.

“I did figure something out,” Haruka began, “but not about you.”

“Who then?” Rin sniffed.

“Myself,” she said. She finished drying Rin’s tears. “Rin, I…” There was so much she could say. That she understood exactly how Rin felt but never put a name to her feelings. That she was drawn to Rin in a way the confused her because it was wrapped in her love for swimming, making it easy for to think her strong feelings for Rin were confined to wanting to race her. That maybe the reason she’d never liked someone was because she’d been in love with Rin since they were children making it impossible for anyone else to be on her radar.

But she didn’t say any of that. They would have time to talk later, when what Rin needed were words. But that wasn’t now. So she did what she’d wanted to do for a long time without realizing it: she kissed Rin. She kissed the stupid, romantic, crybaby shark that kept turning life upside down because it felt like the right thing to do.

Rin made a small noise of surprise when their lips met but made no attempt to push her away; it was all the encouragement Haruka needed. She let instinct take over. Rin’s lips were soft, much softer than her own. She felt momentarily guilty for not taking better care of them. If she’d known she’d be kissing Rin today she might have made the effort to find where her chapstick had gone. Live and learn.

When Rin began to kiss her back her stomach did a little flip. She reached out blindly and ended up pressing her hand against Rin’s heart. It was beating wildly which made Haruka’s insides coil up in a strangely pleasant way. If she’d known how good it would feel to kiss Rin she would have done it sooner.

They broke apart, both of them a little out of breath, not quite having mastered how to kiss and get oxygen at the same time. Were you supposed to breathe through your nose? Haruka wondered. It seemed unlikely most people could hold their breath as long as she could.

“Haru?” Rin asked in disbelief.

“Yes?”

“What the hell was that.”

“A kiss, obviously,” she said without missing a beat.

“I know that, what I don’t understand is _why_.” A note of anxiety crept into her voice. “If that was some kind of pity kiss you better tell me before I get my hopes up.”

“I like you, Rin. That’s what I figured out.”

“You’re lying.” She didn’t sound like she believed her own accusation.

“I’d never lie about this.”

“You like me?” A soft smile appeared on her face, making Haruka’s heart speed up. Rin was unbearably cute.

“That’s what I said.”

In one quick movement, Rin pushed her down on the tatami and straddled her, pinning her arms to side. She was trapped, not from Rin’s strength (as considerable as her muscles were Haruka was pretty they’d be evenly matched in a fight) but from how weak she felt as Rin adjusted herself, rubbing against a particularly vulnerable spot. It was nothing like when Rin had been crying on top of her — back then her head had been filled thoughts of swimming with Rin and relief that not all was lost. She had no such thoughts to distract herself with this time, leaving her hyper aware of where their bodies touched.

Rin’s precious, soft smile turned into a smirk. “You like me,” she said smugly.

“You don’t have to keep saying it.”

“Nanase Haruka likes me,” she singsonged. She wiggled a bit as she did and Haruka felt like strangling her.

“Stop it.”

“Why? It’s true. You like me.”

“We’ve established that.” If she had any doubts about her attraction to Rin, they’d flown out the window the moment she felt her body begin to respond to Rin innocent wiggles. This was getting dangerous.

“You’ve got a big ol’ crush on me, how cute.”

“Shut up, so do you,” she snapped, which only made Rin laugh.

“So how much do you like me?” It was impossible for Haruka to stay mad at her, not when she had such a goofy grin on her face.

“A lot,” she admitted. Too much. Rin movements on top of her were a sweet torture. She was bound to notice Haruka’s overreactions at any moment.

“Show me.” The smugness was gone, a mixture of nervousness and wonder replacing it.

“Okay,” she said. Her self-consciousness evaporated. She let her body respond to Rin’s, not hiding her lust as Rin leaned down to kiss her.

* * *

“You have to text me the moment you get your exam results back, okay?” Rin said as she buttoned up her coat. It was Sunday night and as much as she wanted Rin to stay, they both had school in the morning. It was unfair.

“Stop worrying about it, I’ll pass.” Even as she assured her, she did have her doubts. Rin was an excellent tutor and they’d spent the day going over Haruka’s problem areas until Rin was confident Haruka wouldn’t make the same mistakes again. But it wasn’t the most focused study session: they’d kept getting distracted and even stopped completely a few times to make out, once for over an hour.

“Promise me.”

“Fine. I’ll text you.”

Rin nodded. “Good.” She shoved her hands into her coat pockets and fidgeted with her feet as she stood in the entranceway, hesitating to leave.

“I’ll miss you,” Haruka said. The house would feel lonely without Rin’s larger than life presence.

“Me too.” Her cheeks flushed. Haruka was discovering it was impossible to predict what would make her feel shy or embarrassed. She could be unbelievably brazen and shameless one moment only to innocently blush the next.

Like when she’d stuck her hand under Haruka’s shirt only to break out in a furious blush when she’d realized Haruka wasn’t wearing anything underneath it.

“Why aren’t you wearing a bra?” she’d sputtered.

“I haven’t washed it in a while.”

“What have you been wearing to school?” She looked at Haruka like she’d gone insane.

“Uh, my swimsuit, duh. What else would I wear?”

“You’re unbelievable, you know that? Wait, ’it’? You only have one bra?”

“They’re annoying.”

“That’s not right. I have to take you bra shopping.”

“Shopping for lingerie on our first date, how bold.”

“Shut up.” She covered up her embarrassment by going back to kissing Haruka and Haruka let her, in her mind taking pity on Rin. It was not at all because her brain had shut down (thoughts of further teasing Rin included) when Rin’s tongue started _to do the thing_. Definitely not.

“I’ll text,” Haruka said.

“You already said that.”

“No, I mean, not just about the exam results.”

“Really?” Rin perked up.

Haruka nodded. “I might not respond immediately, but I’ll try.”

“Cool. Well, I should get going.”

“Yeah.”

They moved in for a kiss at the same time, their movements too quick, and painfully banged their mouths together. Haruka’s teeth rattled.

“Oops.” “Sorry,” they said at the same time.

“Let’s try that again,” said Rin.

They paid attention to their actions, careful to keep from repeating the same mistake. As they moved their lips a warmth filled Haruka and it was only with great reluctance that she pulled away to let Rin finally leave.

“Bye, Rin.”

“Bye, Haruka.” She left before either of them could delay her trip back to Samezuka any longer.

The house felt empty without her. Rin took up so much space wherever she went. She was loud and bright and impossible to ignore. Haruka was drawn to her like she was some kind of beacon. It was strange being alone after an entire weekend of Rin. But she could deal with it. Being a train ride away was nothing compared to what they’d already been through. Besides, she was confident they would always return to each other.

She went to go draw herself a bath, humming a song Rin had played for her earlier.


End file.
